


Secrets Best Left Buried

by Skalidra



Series: Dealing with Demons [4]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, M/M, Minor Character Death, Neverland (Once Upon a Time), Past Rape/Non-con
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-08
Updated: 2020-06-08
Packaged: 2021-03-04 01:21:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,421
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24605371
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Skalidra/pseuds/Skalidra
Summary: There are some secrets best taken to the grave, and Killian's known more of them than any man should over the unnaturally lengthened span of his years. Some have been taken from him, some he's sold in deals he never should have made, but some he's kept. No matter the cost.
Relationships: Captain Hook | Killian Jones/Emma Swan, Captain Hook | Killian Jones/Peter Pan | Malcolm
Series: Dealing with Demons [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1055144
Comments: 6
Kudos: 74





	Secrets Best Left Buried

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome back! Every once in a while I recall some like... random piece of dialogue Killian said that implies so much more than the show ever bothered exploring, and I just... do a thing. So, have fun with this. Lovingly dedicated to Killian's throwaway exposition line, "Echo Cave... I lost half my crew inside those rock walls." that no one ever talked about ever again. Enjoy!

Killian can't claim he's the first to realize what's going on. He's still sleeping, in fact, and it's easy to blame it on that when he stumbles out of his cabin, the ship shuddering something awful under his boots, the clang of the alarm bell still ringing against his ears. It only takes a pass of his gaze over the scurry of activity on board — his crew, half-dressed mostly, clearly startled out of sleep same as he was — to see the all too close land, beaches turned silver as steel in the moonlight.

"Get us the hell away from the shore!" he yells at anyone listening, swinging his way around the rails and up the stairs, up to the wheel to get a better look.

How could they have come this close without anyone calling a warning? Has Pan shifted the size of their ocean again? Called them closer? Brought the shore to them? It wouldn't be the first time rocks have shown up in their path, though the demon's never moved a whole shoreline on them before. Judging by how the ship feels, clearly scraping the bottom of the shallows, it's a miracle they haven't been beached or broken apart already. A few moments more, and…

His crew at least know how to deal with the unexpected, by this point. Half-asleep and half-clothed or no, they move efficiently; reeling the sails in, spinning them away from the shore and back out towards open water, as far as Pan lets them get from the threat of the Lost Boys and everything else that dwells on the land.

Killian leaves the wheel in the hands of a wide-eyed man with nothing on but a slipping-off pair of linen pants, and shouts, "Smee!" as he stalks down the stairs, back to the main deck. His first mate appears as if by magic, equally as wide-eyed, hands wringing in front of him. "Smee, you want to tell me why I woke up to my bloody ship being seconds away from being beached?"

"I— I don't know, Captain. I was the same, it seems we all were, it—”

The babbling isn't getting him answers.

Killian looks around at the crew, seeking the guilty faces of anyone who may have been asleep, anyone who might have led them into disaster by their own negligence, and— Everyone on the deck has the same look as him and Smee. Far from fully clothed, startled and tired at turns. He can't find a single man that looks to have been awake before any of this, and the thing is that he knows his crew by this point. Every last one of them.

"Where are the others?" he asks, partially of Smee, but of any of them, really.

Is this some form of mutiny? There's nowhere to go, even if they did make it to land. Were they offered something by Pan to beach the ship? Pan doesn't usually deal with anyone but him, but that doesn't mean that he won't, only that it would be a concerning change of behavior. If Pan's moved on to actively turning his crew against him…

"Smee—”

"I don't know! But the rowboats are both still here, Captain, and there's no way anyone could have gotten to shore without them, not with Neverland's tides. They're just… gone."

It may as well be the law of Neverland: when something unexplained happens, nine times out of ten it's the demon trying out a new game. A game that this time, apparently, involves vanishing an entire shift of his crew for… some bloody purpose. It can't be good, whatever it is. It never is.

Should he wait, or head to land now? If he refuses to play, Pan will come track him down at some point. He won't take no for an answer for long, not if he's gone to this kind of trouble. Besides, these are his men. Even if he wanted to try and outlast Pan's interest instead of going after them, he's as likely to get them back in pieces as never get them back at all, and he can't…

Most of these men have served with him since they were still military men, walking the same path as him and watching his back as much as he's watched theirs. Their fates may be sealed already, but to leave them to die at Pan's whim, without even an attempt to save them, is beyond what he can stomach; he owes them more than that.

"Ready a rowboat," he orders, even this choice making his stomach turn enough that someone else might mistake him to be some fresh recruit, unused to the rhythm of the waves. "I'll go see what the demon wants this time, Smee. If the men can be brought back, I'll see it done."

Smee’s expression twists with fear and worry in the same way his own might, if he could afford to show that kind of weakness before his men. Or anyone else on this accursed island. “And if they can’t be, Captain?”

Killian ignores, best he can, the eavesdropping ears of the men at their sides. “Then I’ll discover their fates. Whatever they might have been. Get the boat ready, Smee.”

"As you wish, Captain."

He strides back towards his quarters, and doesn't wait to see what any of the rest of them think of his decision. The only other option is unacceptable, and none of them want to set foot on that island any more than he does; they'll be relieved to have him go by himself, if anything. (He doesn't want to know what they think of him, often venturing alone into the island to bargain for what they need, returning without any visible loss of possessions or treasure. Some of them must know what Pan demands, some—)

Finishing dressing is automatic, his coat falling into place around his shoulders, hook guided through sleeves with idle care, as familiar to him now as any other action. Boots, sword and pistol (just in case any Lost Boys make an appearance), and spyglass join the rest, and thus armed he heads back out to the deck. Smee has the rowboat ready to be dropped, and offers a wan smile as he climbs into it.

“Good luck, Captain.”

They're empty words, and any response he could give would be just as empty, so he doesn't bother. They all know how this island works, by now. Luck has nothing to do with it.

* * *

It doesn't take long to stumble upon the trail of his men. Since he did, he's obviously meant to, but knowing that doesn't help him one way or another. There's usually not much point in trying to circumvent whatever path Pan wants him to take; it will only get him stuck walking in circles until he goes where he's supposed to, or Pan gets bored of waiting for him to choose and takes the choice from him altogether. He's tried both ways enough times to know it's better not to annoy Pan before the game even really starts.

This path is perhaps half an hour's walk into the mostly familiar sights of the forest, unusually consistent with what he remembers of it. A trail of footsteps curves right into the path he's taking; many of the harder, more defined boot-prints of his men, and an outline of the softer, blurry-edged ones of the Lost Boys, with their preference for fabric shoes.

His men came through here. They were guarded; docile, at that point — there's no sign of a struggle. Killian doesn't know if he believes that was the case; just as likely Pan teleported them to where he wanted them, then faked all this. That doesn’t mean that this trail won’t take him to them, though. He doesn’t think the game is hide and seek. Not this time, anyway.

Of course, that only leaves a whole host of much nastier options.

Ears and eyes open for any hint of ambush — that, he wouldn’t put past Pan — he follows the trail.

It’s difficult to say whether it winds deep into the forest, or whether the forest shifts around him to give the appearance of longevity. It looks, at this point, wholly unfamiliar, but when he glances back the trail is still strong. He’s not trapped yet, not obviously anyway. He still has at least the illusion of leaving, though Killian knows well enough that that’s an illusion that can be yanked out from under him without warning.

Eventually — the sun rises, but it rises faster than it should, and he has no real way to track time than by his own weariness — the trail ends rather abruptly in several bushes nearly as tall as he is. The fronds are rather enormous, hiding more or less all sight of what’s behind them, but a glance at the dirt at the base of them reveals a few more prints, these ones overlapped.

He sets his jaw and steps forward to push the fronds aside.

Nearly immediately beyond is the entrance to a cave. Exposed rock, dark mouth. Killian can’t help how his stomach tightens and twists, tension tightening his shoulders to the point that they hurt. All past experiences with caves in Neverland have been a misery; he can’t imagine this new one will be any more pleasant than the ones before.

Regardless of it being inevitable, one way or another, he almost turns around and walks away right then. It’s only the knowledge that his crew likely lies within that pushes him to square his shoulders and move forward. If he refuses to play Pan's game…

He doesn’t have anything to illuminate the darkness, but luckily that concern is dismissed nearly as soon as he has it, as he rounds a tight corner in the corridor of rock and torchlight flares to life just beside him. He blinks, shielding his eyes for a moment before he can sweep his gaze across the larger cavern the tunnel has opened up into and take it in.

It's a large, mostly empty room. There's where he stands, on a small shelf of rock with a torch mounted on the wall and now alight, allowing him to see the sheer drop off not five feet from where he stands. And past that…

"Captain! _Captain!_ "

He takes a step forward and stops short. Ahead of him, on a spindly pillar of rock ending in a flat top, sits the missing members of his crew. They're inside a large wooden cage, a torch somehow jammed into the rock on either side, the edges of the cage nearly hanging off the rock. It doesn't look like too sturdy wood; he could probably break it open with a few good swings of his sword, or just his hand and hook if it comes to that.

Except, between him and that cage is a wide stretch of open air he couldn't possibly hope to jump, fading into a darkness he can’t see the bottom of when he shifts forward to peer off the edge.

He didn’t bring any rope with him, but maybe he could strip some of the vines outside, weave together something strong enough to throw to them. There’s nothing on this side to tie it to, but he could maybe loop it around a tree outside. Sounds like a perfect chance for Pan to cut it and trap him on the rock with the rest of them, but Killian’s pretty sure that has a better chance of success than trying to get back to his ship and get help, or proper rope. He’d like to think he knows something of the demon’s moods by now, and he feels with a decent amount of surety that if he leaves this cave, he’ll never find it again.

So, vines. It’ll be slow going with just the one hand, but slow is better than standing here just hoping another way across materializes. Literally.

His crew have fallen mostly silent, hands wrapped around the bars of the cage, watching him across the darkness of the rift.

Except one, Jameson, who shouts, “Captain, it’s a trap!” as if he doesn’t know that.

He forces a crooked smile, eyeing the distance again to judge how far he’ll need the vines to reach. His returning call of, “When is it not?” gets some half-hearted laughs, tinged with that sharp edge of despair that he and his men are all too familiar with. The sort that comes when you know you're just a pawn in someone else's game, but there's still no way to cut the strings even when you recognize the puppeteering for what it is.

"A trap?"

Killian bites a swear back but doesn't manage to stop the flinch, or the way his heart jumps in pace sharp enough it hurts, reacting with far more terror than his brain can manage to summon, at this point. He forces himself to take a breath, ignores the barely-audible fear-tinged murmurings of whatever his crew's saying out there on their rock, and turns around.

Speaking of ‘solutions’ materializing.

Pan is leaning back against the wall. Relaxed, except for the sharpness of his eyes and that Killian knows, for a fact, that it only ever takes a fraction of a second for the demon to go from at ease to at your throat. In fact, he’s most dangerous when he’s calm; the vicious intelligence of a hunter is often so much worse than the rabid excitement of the animal, and Pan loves to embody both those things, as it suits his moods.

Pan smiles. There’s nothing friendly about it. “If this were a trap, Captain, wouldn’t there be an ambush?”

Even if he had the room to step back, Killian knows better than to show such an obvious sign of wariness. "Is you appearing out of nowhere not considered an ambush, then? Pretty sure that's the definition of the word, last I checked."

A shrug, as falsely idle as his posture. "You can call it what you want, I suppose. But it's just a game, Killian." A breath, a blink, and Pan's suddenly in front of him, close enough to hiss, "You'll play, won't you?" with sudden obvious malice.

Killian flinches back, takes a step that only lands in empty air, but there's only time for his heart to leap into his throat before Pan's hands are in his jacket, jerking him back from the edge. He staggers, sucking in a sharp breath as it processes that he very nearly just— Well, just what? Died? Pan would never let him.

"Careful," the demon cautions, with a flicker of teeth. "It's a long way down, Captain. You'd owe me for saving your life."

"I don't owe you for things you only do for selfish reasons," he argues; they both know it's true, not that it would stop Pan from trying to collect on some imagined debt anyway. "We didn't make any deal this time."

He half expects Pan to shove him off the edge — he's honestly not sure if he would care; is death worse than what waits for him here? — but instead the demon only gives one of those sharp smiles, pulling him another step away from the edge before letting go. He resists the urge to brush his coat down, smooth out the wrinkles left by Pan's hands as if that will somehow remove the touch as well. It's more important to keep an eye on Pan as he moves away, trailing fingers over the rock wall.

"No, no deal yet. But that doesn't mean you aren't going to play, does it, Killian?"

He glances back at the chasm between him and his men, then to where Pan stands all too close to his only way out. "Can't see as you've given me much choice, demon."

Pan's hand comes to where his heart might be if he had one, as if he's offended. His tone, though, has only a mocking hurt to it. "It _wounds_ me, Captain, that you think so lowly of me. Of course, you're free to leave. Walk out that door any time and the path will take you straight back to your ship; you have my word."

"If I leave without them," Killian fills in, not bothering to gesture at the cage full of men behind him.

"Oh no, you're welcome to take them, too." Then, Pan smirks. " _If_ you can get them out. Clock’s ticking, Killian."

So that's the game. Save his crew, or leave without them.

Well, that just brings him back to his original plan. Nothing's changed, except for the inclusion of an audience; there's still no way across except perhaps to throw a rope and have them tie it off. Or Pan's flight or teleportation, presumably, but then he'll be just as stranded on that rock as the rest of them, subject to whatever price Pan chooses to extract for mercy.

He's only taken one step towards the exit, however, when Pan adds, "If you leave, though, you'll never find this place again.”

Killian stops.

It only takes a second of reviewing his options, to realize that he doesn't have any.

"Alright," he says, turning to Pan, "what's the game then, demon?"

One thin eyebrow arches high. "The game?"

"Yes, demon, the game. That gap's too far to jump; there's nothing to throw, or tie off. Apparently I don't get to leave to retrieve something, either." He crosses his arms, arches an eyebrow right back. "So what is it? Do you want me to amuse you by looking for a solution that isn’t there, or shall we skip right to the bit where you tell me the trick?”

Pan's sigh is all theater, but he does push off the rock and stroll closer. "If you insist, Captain, I _suppose_."

Killian stays still and lets the demon come closer, go up on his toes and lean right up next to his ear. The wash of hot air over his neck is an all too familiar sensation, which never fails to make him wary and tense, his spine stiff.

"This place is called Echo Cave," Pan murmurs, a hand pressing against his shoulder. "It's an old saying. ‘The deeper a lie, the more truth in its echo.’ All you have to do is tell a truth, Captain."

No. It can't be that easy. It has to—

Pan drops back from him. Looks him right in the eye. "Your deepest, darkest, truth."

Killian feels his gut twist, cold and uncomfortable. Does that mean…?

The demon smiles. "Go on, Captain. Tell us a secret. Tell us all."

No. _No_.

The knot in his throat might as well be Pan's hands, strangling him from the inside out. "You want me to—” His voice dips, refuses to rise higher than a whisper. "That _wasn't_ our deal, demon. I won't—”

"It's almost cute," Pan breaks in, sharp and _so_ much louder, "that you think they don't know."

Ice slides down his spine, and it feels frozen itself, one breath or move away from shattering into shards. "Don't—”

"That's not the secret, Captain. You know it isn't." Pan's smile is as clearly malevolent as the ever-shifting rocks that hide beneath Neverland's waves on the demon's will. "But if you want to say it aloud, feel free. You never know, maybe they _are_ that blind. Maybe you really are that good an actor, Captain _Hook_.”

Maybe they don't know. Maybe Pan's speaking softly enough none of them can hear him, separated by chasm and rock. But the silence at his back is damning.

Pan rarely lies. Not outright. Not when the truth cuts deeper.

"You know what the real secret is, Killian," Pan says, and it's no more than a murmur. That's all it has to be. "All you have to do is say it, and you can walk out of here with all your men."

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Killian says, as if saying it out loud will quell the phantom burrs stuck to the back of his throat. The words drag past them, catching, shredded before they even reach his tongue.

A secret darker than Pan’s violation of him, buried beneath the rage and the vengeance in his heart since that very first night. _Buried_ , where it belongs. Except, of course, for when his mind decides to torment him with it. Lingering on the warmth of touch, the sharp ache of pleasure… Every weak, _broken_ moment in all these years, clinging like a stain to the deepest parts of him.

That isn’t him at heart. It’s _not_.

(And yet it is. It must be, or how could he sink to such depravities to begin with?)

Pan steps back, a bounce in his step as he throws a careless, “Then free them, Captain!” over his shoulder. “A pirate like you has to have all kinds of secrets. Surely one of them will work, right?” The demon reaches the wall of the cave, and leans back against it with his arms crossed, all but grinning. “I can’t wait to hear them.”

There’s… There has to be something else. Something worse.

There’s what the Dark One did to Milah. The fact that he brought it on himself, stealing a man’s wife (even if she never loved him, couldn’t wait to leave). But most of his crew knows that story, and Pan certainly does. It’s no secret. Nor is how he’s changed, or the cruelties he’s inflicted knowing full well that his brother would have been horrified to ever know of them. Some of his crew surely have had the same thoughts he has; not all of them were new to his crew upon their return to Neverland, and those older seamen knew his brother just as he did. Pan saw him then, as well. He’s used that very fact to taunt him, more than a time or two.

Not that, then, but surely…

Maybe…

The more he thinks, the more his mind comes back to Pan’s implication. The idea that his men already know what Pan’s taken from him isn’t one that unfamiliar. It’s true, isn’t it? Pan’s never outright told anyone, but he suggests. He leaves bruises, and marks. He’s come aboard the ship before, and—

His men know.

Killian’s eyes flicker shut, his single hand curling to a fist as he breathes away the sickness twisting his gut. His nails bite into his palm, but the flash of pain is nauseatingly familiar and he shrinks from it as surely as if it were Pan’s fingers instead of his own.

Except for when he doesn’t. Except for when he— he welcomes it. Pleasure or pain or just a single gods-damned touch to get away from the isolation and the _grief_ —

_Gods_. It’s true. He’s—

What has he _become?_

“Well, Captain? What’s it going to be?”

Pan’s still leaning there, when Killian drags his eyelids open once again, and peels his gaze up from the rocks. Cruel. Gleeful. Waiting for him to cut himself open, spill his blood and guts across the rock for nothing but his damned amusement.

It would ruin him. Cripple him, as surely as if he truly did take a knife to his skin. His men… They already look at him as if he’s an enemy, rather than a leader. He brought them into this hell, he sentenced them to this life, _he’s_ the one that’s cost them everything. His grip on his crew lasts only because his presence offers as much protection as danger; a barrier to Pan’s moodswings, and the only one of them to ever deal with the demon with any degree of success. But if they knew what he’s become… If they knew how _weak_ he truly is, and the things he’s come to enj—

No.

No, he _won’t_. He _can’t_.

“Damn you,” he rasps, because it won’t come from his throat in any other tone. “Damn you, Pan.”

The first step feels like dragging his leg through mud, but the next comes with momentum.

His men start to shout on the third. He digs his nails into his palm and keeps going.

The sunlight burns his eyes when he steps out of the cave, and the desperate, desolate shouts of his trapped crew fade to nothing nearly instantly. Killian wishes he could feel surprised, when he turns and there’s nothing behind him but sheer rock face. If the cave is even still there, it’s buried. As are his men.

He’s killed them all.

He feels dazed and distant as he begins to walk, his legs taking him along the uncommonly clear dirt path laid at his feet. It seems as if he only blinks and it shifts to rocks and sand, and there’s his rowboat, undisturbed and high above the usual tideline, as he left it.

It isn’t until a hand is grasping his, helping pull him over the bulwark of his ship, onto her familiar planks, that he starts to shake free of the strange distance.

“Captain?” a familiar, eternally nervous voice asks, and he blinks and looks up.

Smee looks back at him, the hand he’d clasped in his own held off to the side and smeared red. Killian looks down to his own hand, and the deep crescent cuts in his palm. It doesn’t hurt. It should.

“It’s nothing,” is what comes out of his mouth. “The ship?”

“No damage from our near miss last night, sir. Everything’s ship-shape.” The crooked grin at the joke falls almost as soon as it appears. “Did you find them, Captain? The others?”

His breath shakes. Somehow, he doesn’t. “Aye, I did.”

For once, Smee doesn’t look even the slightest bit hopeful. “Are they…?”

He has to swallow, though whether the urge is reflex, or some attempt to hold back the sickening twist of his stomach, he doesn’t know. His men. He… Gods, he left them.

Killian takes a breath, and if his, “There was nothing to be done,” sounds numb, perhaps it at least doesn’t sound like a lie.

Smee nods. Doesn’t speak, for once.

He thinks, for a moment, to ask. All it would take is a single question, and he’d know for sure. Smee’s never been a good liar, but he listens with a sharper mind than anyone gives him credit for. He would know, truly, if the crew knows what Pan’s done to him.

All he’d have to do is ask.

“Secure the rowboat,” he says instead. “Take us out to deeper waters, for now. We have the supplies for at least a few days, right?”

Smee drags himself up, voice only wobbling a bit. “Aye, Captain.”

“Good.” He clenches his hand, finally feels the burn of the divots in his flesh. “Get us away from this damned island, Smee. As far as it will let us.”

“Yes, sir. And the… the men? Do you want me to tell them?”

No. But what point is there in pretending nothing happened?

“No, I’ll do it. Get them up here, Smee.”

“Aye, sir.”

He closes his eyes as Smee goes, and focuses on the anger, ever-burning deep in his chest. Everything else he buries beneath it, forcing it from his mind, fortifying himself for at least the moment with another deep breath.

Then he opens his eyes, and heads across the deck.

What’s one more secret, to add to the rest? No one ever needs to know.

* * *

The terrors aren’t anything new. Centuries of memory, much of it bad, means that Killian rarely has a night he sleeps all the way through, and most mornings he wakes earlier than he should to lie there until it’s a more acceptable time to rise. It’s a piece of life he’s grown used to, and it’s easier now with Emma by his side, her warmth and her softness an anchor against all the storm of what plagues him.

Who plagues him, rather. There are the nightmares of Milah, of Rumpelstiltskin, of his brother, but more often what haunts him are memories and fear combined. Neverland, Pan, the Lost Boys and all the other dangers that island held.

Emma knows… some. Maybe she’s put other pieces together, but he’s only told her the glossed over versions of his time in Neverland. With Pan. He’s told her that it was centuries, that he and his crew fought for survival, that he lost men and did things he’s not proud of. None of it a lie, and none of it the truth.

It probably sticks out to her, given how free he’s been about other things. She hasn’t asked, though. She’s accepted his generalizations and not dug for more, despite what Killian knows to be a vast difference between those answers and the ones he gives about any other part of his life.

He doesn’t know what she thinks, that he’s told her everything about losing Milah to the Crocodile, but almost nothing about Neverland. He doesn’t want to know.

And that’s fine, until the nightmares invade his waking world.

It happens sometimes; a pair of green eyes or a sharp grin has the ability to make him see Pan where he doesn’t belong, and every once in a long while he’ll swear he hears the demon’s voice in his ear. He’s used to those things too.

But Emma pushes him down on their bed with a smile, curls her hands around his wrists and presses them down above his head like a dozen times before, and everything _twists_. He feels nails against his skin, overwhelming strength pinning him down and green eyes flashing anticipation and a falsely childlike glee as white teeth bare and—

Killian jerks free with the desperation of sudden terror, gasp catching in his throat as he wrenches himself away from the touch. His back hits wood, chest tight and—

Blonde hair. Long, blonde hair and wide _hazel_ eyes, staring at him. Emma. Just Emma, not Pan. Not his magics, or his shadows, or—

“Killian?” She sounds worried, and for a moment that idea verges on ludicrous, the idea that anyone would ever actually _worry_ about him. Until his thoughts catch up with that reaction and remind him that she is his _wife_. Maybe not the first love of his life, but just as important as the first. “Killian, are you okay?”

He has to swallow, thickly, before he can drag anything from his throat. “Fine. Fine, sorry, love.” A small grin comes too, as automatic as the half-truth of his explanation. “Just a bit of memory that caught me unawares; nothing to do with you, I promise.”

Emma frowns her concern at him. Her hands hover just over his legs, not quite touching. "Are you sure?”

His skin still crawls, but he forces himself to reach out and take her hand with the one he has left, curl her fingers through his and clasp tight. “I’m sure.”

She doesn't seem convinced, but she leaves it be.

The hint of green eyes haunts him the rest of the morning, but he does his best to hide it. His best is good; he's been hiding Pan's marks on him for centuries, after all. Bruises, violations, and scars, spread over more lifetimes than any man should have to live. He endured, though. He survived.

Maybe it's time to truly live, too.

Emma leaves after breakfast, off to work on some disturbance he only heard half the explanation for, distracted as he was. She still has an edge of concern to her gaze, but he doesn't acknowledge it, and she doesn't bring it up. When she leaves, Killian does as well.

The idea of cutting himself open for a stranger is wholly unappealing, but maybe…

Charming opens the door only a moment after he knocks. Smiles like he's truly glad to see him, which is something Killian's still getting used to. Sincerity is still a foreign concept, if he thinks about it too long.

"Hook, come in, come in. What can I do for you?"

He steps over the threshold, looks for Snow and doesn't find her. "I was actually wondering if we might speak?” He doesn't see their new child, either. "Just us," he adds belatedly.

"Of course," Charming says, because of course he does. Do-gooder. Hero. Everything Killian still sometimes isn't sure he's managed to turn himself into. "Come sit down. Can I get you anything? Water? Beer?"

"Something stronger?"

The prince cracks a smile. "Sure. Just a second."

Killian takes a seat at the table as Charming loops back behind the kitchen's bar. A little more than two fingers per glass, and Charming sets one in front of him and takes the other for himself, and the chair opposite. Must not have anything to do today; Charming's too responsible to be drinking this early if he has plans. Too responsible to invite him to a conversation knowing he'd have to leave, too.

"So, what is it? You know I'm always here to listen."

He wraps his fingers around the glass, keeps his gaze down on the liquid so he doesn't have to look Charming in the face for this. "I know, and I know I've no right to ask this of you, but… There are things I've kept to myself. Things about Neverland." The name feels like acid on his tongue. "Pan. Things I couldn't ever bring myself to speak of. Not to Emma. Not to anyone."

He looks up when Charming moves, shoulders drawing tense as he gets up from the chair and— Picks up the bottle from the counter. It comes down in the center of the table with a thud.

"Anything you want to tell me," Charming says, sitting back down, "I'm here. And either I drink enough of this—” he swishes his glass, makes the rum slosh dangerously close to the edge "—I don't remember it at all, if you want me to, or I never tell a soul. You have my word."

Unclenching his jaw enough to speak feels like a monumental effort. "You don't know what you're promising."

Charming shakes his head. "I know exactly what I'm promising. You're my daughter's husband. You're a good man. You'll be a good father. And if helping you means I learn some things I don't like, well, I can live with that."

The pain in his chest is like a knife wound, the same burning, awful drag of steel and air into the most vulnerable bits of him. He can only laugh, bitter and broken and everything these heroes never seem to judge. "If one of us is good, it's you, mate."

"No limit on good. I don't think my mind's going to change."

Why not start at the worst, then? Or what weighs heaviest, at least. "Do you remember Echo Cave?"

Charming winces. "Hard place to forget. You said you lost crew in there, right?"

"Aye, I said that." He gives into the urge to take a swallow of the rum, the burn so familiar it doesn't even work as the distraction he wants. "Pan took a third of my crew. Locked them in that cage, then led me right to it. And I left them there, because I couldn't bear to tell them all the truth the cave demanded from me. I left them to die."

"What was the secret?" Charming asks; the obvious question that still takes the air from Killian's lungs.

Breath fans over his neck. His wrists ache. There's the echo of a laugh, in his ears.

"There's the one that didn't count. That I was Pan's… toy." The smirk that twists his mouth is an ugly, vicious thing from decades past, there and gone again in a moment. He keeps his gaze on his glass. "His favorite toy. I was his entertainment, in any way he desired, and an all-powerful demon locked at the cusp of adulthood is nothing _but_ desire. All kinds. Not exactly the kind of thing you speak about, even if you know it."

He takes a breath that shudders through his chest, stares at the grain of the table.

"The secret, though, was that sometimes… Sometimes, I enjoyed his trespasses. He couldn't make me willing, but it's not hard to make a man responsive, if you know what they find pleasure in." He can remember the scrape of nails over his ribs, drawing his breath short and sharp. "Pan… _knew_ me. He loved to find limits. Break them, just to see what would happen. In that cave, he found one of mine. That I valued what scraps of pride I had left over the lives of my men. Some captain, hm?"

He looks up then, to Charming's steady gaze. He doesn't know what he expects — pity, anger, disgust — but it isn't just a slight cast of sadness, open and sincere. It catches him off guard.

"How long were you in Neverland?" he asks, and Killian has to stumble over his own words a moment before he finds the answer.

"Three-hundred years, give or take. Not the easiest to keep track of time in a place that doesn't have any. Days and nights there lasted as long as Pan wanted them to, not any length that made sense." He cracks a smirk, drags up the defense of that humor. "Not bad to be back in a place where things like that run as they should."

Charming smiles back, though it's a small thing. "Sounds like it's enough to drive anyone mad, after long enough."

Mad. That's a kind way to put it.

"Aye. It is. Neverland isn't a place I'd wish on even an enemy."

Charming's been. Been shot with an arrow, nearly trapped for eternity, so the agreeing hum isn't a surprise. Nor is the large swallow of rum, touch a bit heavy-handed as he sets the glass back down. "But you still went back," he says, and there's just enough of a pause for Killian to look up and meet his gaze before he adds, "For my daughter. To help her."

When he breathes, it shakes. "Aye."

And he'd do it again, he knows. If Pan lived, if they needed to go back to Neverland, he'd take them. He'd take Emma anywhere. Maybe it's not true love, not the kind of curse-breaking magic that binds souls together, but he loves her with all he has, regardless. To whatever fate she chooses.

Charming nods. "Then tell me the rest. Whatever you want to. I'm here to listen."

Killian closes his eyes, and does.

**Author's Note:**

> [You can find my Tumblr here!](https://skalidra.tumblr.com/)


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